POT LUCK

 Recently, Martin Jensen visited the Pen Museum at Gundagai and bought a pen. To try it out.he wrote this verse, trying to stick to one syllable words. It should cheer all amateur potters.  

One fine day
I threw clay.
Made a pot.
Fired it hot.
Went to fete.
Got there late.
Put a price
To entice.
Many pots.
Lots and lots.
Colours bold.
Not one sold.
Took mine home.
Scratched my dome,
Feeling blue.
What to do?
Put on shelf.
Looked like Delf.
Very fine
And still mine.
Useful too.
Quite a coup.
Keys and cash.
Perfect stash.

You can find Martin's books on Buzzword.

What really happened to Jesus?

 The Passion Play? The 'bread' and 'wine'? The 'physical' resurrection? The 'betrayal' of Judas? Read on:

This story is about two adepts from an esoteric school who trained for twenty years to present a Passion Play designed to influence humanity.
    It concerns the principal adepts Judas and Jesus. Both of them were astonishing. For instance, a suffering woman crept up behind Jesus and touched the hem of his garment, hoping to be cured. He immediately knew that power had gone out of him. Could a man on such a level of perception not know that he was about to be betrayed? Of course not. He knew well and agreed with the 'betrayal'.
    The Sanhedrin was about to pounce and drag Jesus off. All part of the script. But inconvenient. Because it left no time to conduct the final spiritual technique before he died.
    So Judas negotiated with the Rabbis and delayed his capture. He said he would give Jesus up later at an appropriate time.
    This freed Jesus and the 'disciples', who were not simple fishermen but highly evolved initiates, to engage in the 'last supper'.
    This was a far from symbolic technique which has pallid echoes even today in the ritual of blood brotherhood. It involved the 'disciples' consuming some of the Master's blood with slivers of his flesh to create a psychic bond with him, so that, at 'Pentecost' they could commune with a short time with his astral or etheric body — and prove for themselves, among other things that a form of 'life' continued beyond the grave.
    The notion of Christ rising from the dead physically was a much later embellishment that has troubled rational thinkers ever since because they regard it rightly as nonsense. Dead bodies don’t get up and cavort. As for the 'virgin birth' it was borrowed from the myths of Mithras and Herakles and tacked on to the story later.
    If you are a committed Christian, this explanation will either disgust you or furnish you with insights that have the ring of truth. You can read it in Clinton Smith's story, The Stand-in under FREE READS on the Buzzword Books website or download it here.

 

THE DAY I BECAME PRIME MINISTER...

 John Alexandra muses on power...

…I did nothing. 

    Because I knew that you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

    Because I knew that every action creates an equal and opposite reaction.
    That every solution produces eight more problems.
    That silence is ten times more powerful than speech.
    That they who know most do least.
    That there is no need to seek after the real. Simply to cease making distinctions.
    That all is vanity.
    That the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.
    That that which is to be has already been and there is no new thing under the sun.,
    That the more things change, the more they remain the same.
    That change happens only to the knower. And as the knower is unreal, nothing, in fact ever happens.
    That I was not here to better myself but to experience this moment. And the effort of being in the moment was suffering enough. 

    And so I resolved to live continuously in the divine essence and the nothingness of things.
    To accept emptiness, the void. 

    My cabinet ministers were not impressed.

THE POWER OF PERSONAL HYGENE

 Martin Jensen, author of How to Get What You Want, gives you the lowdown on his personal life.

 

Why do little ducklings walk softly? Because they can’t walk hardly.

To be serious, animals that have lost their mums fixate on people who try to look after them. 

Ducklings, even baby hippos, will follow you around.

When I was five, I developed an infection behind my right ear. My mum put flour on it to dry it and told me to always wash behind my ears. She told me this in the street on her way to wash bottles for the war effort. Eighty-one years later, it is as if I see the scene now.

And at age 86, I still wash behind my ears. Like a duckling or baby hippo, the act she imprinted on me is essential. If I don’t wash behind my ears, it feels wrong. And to do it brings me comfort. I imagine that my long dead mum would be amazed at this result but there it is.

Another thing I do compulsively, is have an eyebath. Each morning, in the shower, before washing behind my ears, I prime my small plastic eyebath with a trickle of salt. Then, when I’ve cleaned my eyelids with soap, I apply the eyebath to each eye in turn, blinking, of course, so the saline contacts the eye.

At 86, my eyes are not good and have been easily infected. Not now. On my last visit to the ophthalmologist, I told him my habit. He sighed and said, ‘I’m not sure you can buy eyebaths anymore.’ Next day, I ransacked two Chemist Warehouse stores and left about fifteen eyebaths at the desk for him.

At night, after a hard night snoring in front of the boob tube, my eyelids feel gritty. Do I use eyedrops? Not always. I lick my finger and rub them over the closed lids. It gives almost instant relief. Saliva is partly antiseptic and does the job. It’s not for nothing we have the expression ‘licking your wounds’. If saliva is good enough for cats and dogs, it’s fine.

Another thing I never miss is flossing my teeth. At 86, I have lost two teeth, but would have lost more without this habit. I’ve made a flossing device with two prongs to hold the floss. There is a wooden handle attached with two long screws surmounted by wingnuts, one on either side. One holds the spindle with the floss. (You just gut the floss container and fish it out.) The other secures two brass washers that clamp the end of the floss in place. I have made a dozen of these contraptions and have one in several rooms of the house. Another in the car glovebox. Another in my overnight bag. And I have donated more to friends and family. They make flossing extremely easy and reduce the cost to almost nothing.

Finally, as I squat on the toilet (if you sit on it you’re a  fool) it brings my toes conveniently near my hands. This makes it easy to grab a nailfile and roughen the nails of my feet. Then I brush them with antifungal solution. The lacquer is dry before I step into the shower.

I have now divulged the minutia of my self-maintenance regime.

There is more, of course. Lifting weights, bike riding, walking, but you don’t need instructions for that. Except to say that if you lift weights when you are 20, you can improve your fitness 10 per cent. But if you start lifting weights after 75, you can improve your fitness 30 per cent. So if you want to die fit, get a press bench.

Then there’s diet. More veg. Less meat. And a morning teaspoon of brewer’s yeast, which contains every trace element known.

Go, and do thou likewise.

And remember that growing old is the only way to live a long time.

You can read Martin's Books on Buzzword.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO TOUCH, TO SENSE, THE UNFORMED?

John Alexandra's second book is a manual for doing just that. It leads the seeker progressively from utter rationality to the arcane. Here is a review by D. S. Mills:

This book is as practical as it is profound. An uncompromising investigation of the world and our inner selves. It begins with an exposition of contemporary thought — scientific, philosophical and spiritual. And demonstrates that these three ways of knowledge are fundamentally flawed.

Then it examines the perceiver. And deconstructs everything we believe about ourselves. It demonstrates that objectively, we don't exist. That all our thoughts, opinions, convictions, passions, regrets, recriminations, the whole panorama of what we call our personalities is simply a series of conditioned reactions based on fear. And that, unless we realize that we are nonentities, nothing more is possible.

To quote from the introduction: "Many so-called gurus declare that we are already everything — God. This assertion is as mindless as saying that we don't exist at all. Yet both are true. And false. Because reality is with us always and we are attempting to find what always was, and always will, exist.

What you and the cosmos consist of can eventually be sensed — but at a level of perception that mind, body and emotions can't grasp. The problem is to make these parts passive while remaining acutely alert.
Simple and extraordinarily difficult as all profundities are.
It requires total attention.
To remain in the space before thought.
To be aware of yourself.
To be."

The second half of the book opens the frontiers of insight, assisted by copious quotes from gurus and spiritual masters. There is no compromising here. The doors of perception, the text explains, only open after the entire psychology has been abandoned, and only physiological life remains. The aspirant must die too himself, totally and completely. The book even shows how to do this. But the path is steep and I suspect that few seekers will have courage enough to tread it. Because it requires total sincerity and utter self-negation.

This is a serious study suitable only for those sincere enough to risk everything in the quest - a practical manual on approaching Reality. Its triumph is that it makes sense, and reconciles, both outer and inner worlds.

Available now from Buzzword.

TALES OF BALLARAT - A LITERARY TOUR-DE-FORCE

Clinton Smith, at the age of 85, has finally completed his magnum opus - a story anthology about his home town of Ballarat. He's been revising these same tales for sixty years, so they have to be almost perfect. In fact they were almost perfect years ago as various stories in the collection have won ten literary awards. 

Clint says, 'I spent my childhood in the elegant provincial city of Ballarat and wrote my first story about the region in my 20s. Eventually I wrote thirteen more. Although they later won awards and appeared in magazines and anthologies, I kept revising the same tales for the next 60 years.'

 What really goes on behind the scenes in a country town? These thirteen brilliantly crafted short stories expose the lives behind the facades.
This collection of inter-related tales dates from the 1960's and is set in and around  Ballarat, Victoria. It takes us behind the masks of people related to that town with an intensity and depth that strips them bare.

Stories in this anthology have won ten literary awards: two Victorian Fellowship of Australian Writers Awards, four NSW FAW Awards, a Moomba Award, an Alan Marshal Shire of Eltham Award, a Shoalhaven COE Award and a Lane Cove Library Literary Commendation. The writer has also won the inaugural Mary Drake Award, a Bicentennial Literary Award for short fiction and an FAW award for a screenplay. 

The critics agree:

"Work of impressive quality. Each story skilfully manipulates language and form to convey the central theme: 'the world behind what we take as reality'. A pleasure and education to read."
      Lynk

"Beautiful writing."
      Judge: Lane Cove Literary Award

""This unusual collection maintains a very high standard indeed. These are tales of extraordinary depth and insight, consummately written and profound."
      Commissioning Editor, Buzzword Books 

Clint says, 'Each story is a cry - an attempt to make the reader feel.'

Read about THIS BOOK now.

RHAPSODY ON A MONORHYME

Clint Smith, not to be outdone by Martin Jensen's recent parody of immortal verse, contributes this anomaly - an ingenious piece of doggerel with a single rhyme. It's titled SUMMERY.

 

Fluttering fronds in baking glare.
Mindless insects drill the air.
Panting dog with shedding hair.
Sprinkler spurting everywhere.
Sips of warm vin ordinaire.
Melting slice of Camembert.
Basking boy with stupid stare,
Dandruff in his matted hair.
Bawling baby, bottom bare,
Powder on its derriere.
Lurking leech on garden chair
Crawls inside Mum’s underwear.
Daughter, tragic, doctrinaire,
Raves that life is plain unfair.
Grandad, senile, unaware,
Bowels and brain in disrepair,
Soils himself and starts to swear.
No one wants to help or care.
Which incites me to declare:
None but the brave observes despair.